From the course: Music Theory for Songwriters: The Fundamentals

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Seven white notes and five black notes

Seven white notes and five black notes

From the course: Music Theory for Songwriters: The Fundamentals

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Seven white notes and five black notes

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- In Western music, each octave is divided into 12 equal steps. Without getting into the math of it, we perceive each pair of adjacent notes as being equidistant from each other. This is what the term Equal temperament means. For instance, when I play this note and its next door neighbor, (playing piano) We perceive the difference in frequency between those two notes, as the same amount of difference between these two neighboring notes. (playing piano) In order to keep all these keys straight, we've named them. The seven white keys of the piano represent the notes, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Once you reach G, the sequence starts over again with A. (playing piano) The five black keys represent modifications to these notes and are sometimes referred to as accidental keys. Each black key is either higher or lower in pitch than it's white key neighbor. And every black key has two names. We call it…

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